Background

Nepali society needs visionary and creative thinkers to understand the changing social, political, cultural, and economic climate. Research on these areas is essential and must be supported by quality research that young researchers conduct. Achieving high-quality research in Nepal is especially challenging given the research environment of the country. Terrain related to science, development, climate, and policy is still fragmented. The research trend does not promote critical thinking and investments in research are limited as well. Findings are usually poorly documented and not shared among researchers even if they exist. The outputs are rarely communicated to the wider public in a language that they can understand.

Young graduates can play a significant role in carrying out research, sharing results among their peers and other groups within society for betterment. Graduates from Nepali universities need to engage with each other and a wider society to promote economic development, social welfare, and environmental stewardship. However, they lack skills to carry out quality research and get little input from research organizations that pioneer in these issues. Due to this challenge, the findings do not generate new knowledge that will be instrumental in addressing policy issues and challenges. This will lead to low quality input of produced graduates to the think tanks. In both cases, society loses.

Improving the quality of education is not only the responsibility of educational institutions, but the role played by other stakeholders is equally important. It requires a partnership among these stakeholders to improve the quality of research in the country. For this reason, Central Department of Environmental Science, Institute of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University (CDES-IOST-TU), Resources Himalaya Foundation (RHF), and Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-Nepal (ISET-N) formed a consortium in 2015 to help build an ecosystem capable of carrying out high-quality research. For this, the consortium agreed to annually hold Graduate Conference of the universities in Nepal known as Himalayan Knowledge Conclave. The conference is held in the first week of April every year.

The Government of Nepal – Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (GoN-MoEST) has generously patronized and supported the initiatives since 2018. Now, it is time to work together for the 2024 Conference. With this motive, the Graduate Conference 2024 has been proposed to convene from April 4 to 5, 2024. The Central Department of Environmental Science, Institute of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University (CDES-IOST-TU), the organizer of the first conference, has shown its keen interest to host the 10th Conference in Kathmandu.